Revenants
by carved in the sand
Summary: "She didn't need any more ghosts in her life when she trekked so carefully around one every day." - Hitsugaya POV


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"I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk. I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine."

- Emily Brontë

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Without fail, I am always in Karakura for the first snowfall of the year.

It's always around the beginning of November, when the cool breeze of fall shifts sharply into a wintry frost, and the snowflakes sit on the ground and bundle together into tufts of white. Karakura is a different city covered in the fields of white, somewhere that feels closer to home.

Without fail, she is always sitting on the back porch of her house.

It can't be past afternoon yet when she's sitting there, holding one steaming cup of hot chocolate and sitting beside another. My gigai is a horribly irritating thing – it interferes with my reiatsu usage and feels as alien as a second skin should. But the ability to consume human world food pacifies me to it.

She is watching her brother, her sister, and her niece in the distance, playing in the snow and laughing loudly. There is a very sad, very bitter smile on her face as she watches the three of them. I follow her eyes to Ichigo, throwing snowballs along with Yuzu and an auburn haired toddler.

My feet crunch against the thick snow as I make my way over to the steps of the back porch, and sit down next to her, grabbing the cup. I've left the mandatory paperwork on the desk in her room, sticking out noticeably on top of her Anatomy textbook. For now, I am only here for her quiet company and the warm drink.

Karin takes another sip, turning towards me with the usual coy smirk. It makes me physically ache. I haven't seen that smirk in a year.

"Long time no see," she replies, setting the drink down beside her thigh and reaching up to pull down her hood. Hair blacker than ink falls down from her head, pooling past her neck and down her chest. "I think you got a little bit taller."

I shrug, reaching out to play with a lock of her hair. It frustrates "You look exactly the same to me."

She chuckles, swatting my gloved hand away. "I got tired of cutting it. And I don't have to wear earmuffs or a hat when my hair's covering everything."

"At least your laziness hasn't changed," I answer her. Karin does not laugh this time, and it's a struggle to keep my hot chocolate from spilling when she punches me in the arm. I can feel her reiatsu pressure spike. Pain shoots through right side. "This gigai is _breakable_, Kurosaki. Watch it."

"What, are you gonna to cry?"

"Possibly. I haven't seen your face in a while. My eyes are still adjusting."

"The swelling can fix that."

I sigh and she laughs again. I could close my eyes and sit on that porch and listen to her laughter after what feels like a century of it's absence. It's not a sweet sound – no wind chimes, no bells, no sweet things, but warmth spreading through my flesh. It's throaty and so horribly unfeminine it could only belong to her.

But she's older now. The hair and the angled cheeks that get thinner and higher every time I come around. She's long since turned into a woman.

It's a quiet frustration. She will grow and grow and grow, and I can only hope to keep up.

A particularly high squeal catches our attention as we watch the orange-haired toddler roll around in the snow, and Ichigo stumble after her, attempting to pick the girl up. The little girl has thick, curly locks of bright orange hair, bright gray eyes, and long lashes. I can still see Karin out of the corner of my eye – the unmistakable, bittersweet look she gives that child far too often.

"I turned twenty in May," she said, taking a long sip of her hot chocolate before setting it down beside her once more. She doesn't spare me a glance as I turn to the sound of her voice. "It's weird. Nothing's really the same. Time just moves on and I'm stuck here wondering where everything went wrong."

I'm shaking my head before she could even finish the sentence. "Everything is as it should be."

She shrugs, biting down on her bottom lip for a long, silent moment as the snow fell over her head. "That's the problem with it, I guess. I hate thinking about it."

I look at the squealing child once more, grabbing onto her father's legs and letting the both of them fall into the snow with bales of laughter that resound fully, happiness rippling through the air like a cold breeze.

"He's happy," I say. I know nothing of fatherhood – just the barest whispers from observation. And I know nothing of my own. But I do know happiness. Kurosaki has found it in his daughter.

"She's got Orihime's eyes." Yuzu joined in the fray, tackling Ichigo. The words started falling from her lips carelessly. Each one crawled through my fake skin. "I look at her and think, _she shouldn't be alive_, and I hate it. They were never supposed to be together. I can see it in his eyes. He'll never love her and it's so goddamned unfair."

"Life is unfair, Karin."

"It wasn't supposed to _be_ this way."

I lock my jaw from answering back. The urge to scream at her was sudden and succinct, wrapping its way around my throat. Stupid girl. Didn't she think I already knew?_  
_

Karin leaned back, propping her hands back on the porch. There was a finality to her gaze, the way she stared that turned the world into perspective and asked all the questions I did not want to answer.

"Do you think that'll be me in a couple of years? Who's kid do you think I'll be playing around with?" she asked, lolling her head towards me with eyes washed in darkness and blackened realism that stains everywhere her eyes brush over.

I refuse to meet her gaze.

"You're talkative today." I down the burning liquid in my gloved hands and let it sear the back of my throat and tongue. Pain always makes the gigai feel less foreign, connecting to my own nerve endings. It makes this conversation feel more real, like I had a right to sit here and continue it.

"And you suddenly have a personality, don't you?" she murmured, the quiet blurring away the question in her words. The sorry grin tainted her voice like an old bloodstain. "Every year, you're here. Just for me. Just to see little old me. Sadistic, isn't it? What the fuck are you trying to accomplish, Toshiro?"

This time I can't help the glare that my face screws up into, gritting my teeth as my skin burns in anger.

"You know we're going to end up just like them. Stop delaying the inevitable," Karin said, turning away and standing from the porch, leaning against the banister as she stared out at the returning Kurosakis. "Except I'll be too bitter to try and be happy."

"You're not bitter. You're childish and angry," I said blankly, placing the cup beside me and turning my head to look at her. She glared, her mouth curling into everything selfish and angry about her. "You aren't Kuchiki. You aren't going to be tortured by my existence for centuries to come. You'll forget me easily."

Karin rolled her eyes, running a gloved hand through her long black hair. "And what if I don't want to? When have you ever considered that?"

"Which part?"

"Forgetting you."

I sighed aloud, looking upwards. Her memory would fade soon, wouldn't it? Waiting for it to happen shouldn't be that long. "We've been out of options for a long time now, haven't we?"

"It hasn't been going well," she murmurs. "I can't pretend you've only ever been a ghost."

I choke out a laugh involuntarily, thoughts of Kuchiki Rukia walking around Seiterei like the ghost she always will be. Seeing her in meetings was painful - I was the only one who would ever truly know her past with Kurosaki. It was hard even looking at the idiotic redhead. Did he know how much pain his absence caused? Was it easy for him to bind himself to another woman for the rest of his mortal life?

It was frightening, the prospect of not being able to see Karin. Was Kuchiki my future? Would I turn into a ghost when I finally decided to let go of my own?

Maybe I was smiling. I wasn't sure, but Karin stared at me with a betrayed frown.

"Don't show me that vulnerable face," I murmured, the words coming from my mouth of their own volition. "If you want to pretend that I'm not a ghost, you should never have fallen in love with one."

Karin breathed out heavily, biting her bottom lip until it bloomed red. "You were never...apart of the plan, Toshiro. Did I ever ask for it to turn out this way?" she murmured.

I shake my head, brushing snowflakes from my clothes. "I never asked either."

She calls out while I walk away, leaving the cups on the porch and the space beside her empty. Everything blurs just a bit while I think. Next year is already so clear to me, like I've already shoveled myself through the paperwork and the new graduates to recruit and training, training, first snowfall of the year would come and pass without me there.

She didn't need any more ghosts in her life when she trekked so carefully around one every day.

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**A/N:**_ Dedicated to Adobo-chan's constant, lovely reviews. You know, I was thinking about starting a therapy group instead of a club. Because, well, we have a problem. And they're sad HitsuKarin fics._

_This was something that got me thinking about how if things went differently after the Hueco Mundo arc, with Ichigo losing his powers: what if he never got them back? No Fullbringers, no Rukia, & no happiness Rukia = happiness for Ichigo. Karin's unhappily taken the role of substitute shinigami. Implied HitsuKarin past. Pain. Lots of pain. _

_I generally stay away from First POV, but Hitsugaya started talking, and I couldn't shut him up. Sweet Jesus, I hope I got his tone right. Remember to review, you guys! Every one counts!_


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